Chapter 60

Josie threw her forearm up over her eyes as the Life Flight helicopter kicked up dirt, leaves, and American burnweed fluff. Debris whirled around them as it took off from the edge of the island, carrying Ryan to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. It was too soon to tell whether or not he would survive. She watched as, across the river, Noah emerged from the trees. His white T-shirt and pants were covered in Ryan's blood. He looked haggard as he hopped into Mitch Brownlow's boat for the short ride back to the bank.

As the noise of the copter's rotors faded, Josie could hear Mira speaking to Rosie. The two of them were huddled in the back of one of the ambulances, waiting to be transported to Denton Memorial to be checked out.

"I don't want you to leave," Rosie cried.

"I'm so sorry, honey. I don't want to leave either, but I will have to. I've done some bad things and now I have to be held accountable."

Josie turned and studied them. Mira was sitting upright on the gurney. Somehow, Rosie had managed to fit her body onto the bed as well. Rosie gazed up at her mother with adoration and fear. "What does that mean? Accountable?"

Mira stroked her hair out of her face. "It means that when you do something bad, like break a law, you have to face the consequences—the things that happen when you break laws."

Rosie whispered, "Like go to prison?"

A tear rolled down Mira's face. "Yes, honey. I'm so sorry. But you will be safe. I promise. There is someone I have in mind to take care of you, and you'll love her."

Rosie clutched at Mira's waist. "No. I don't want someone else. I want you."

Mira squeezed the girl and stroked her hair until Rosie fell asleep, the events of the day too much for her.

Josie walked over and stood at the back doors. "We're going to get you out of here soon."

Mira nodded. "Will you call Rebecca? See if she'll speak with me? With both me and Seth in prison, she's the closest family. I don't want my mother involved in Rosie's life. Not that she would agree to it."

Josie had a feeling that in spite of Rebecca's strong negative feelings toward Seth, she wouldn't hesitate to take in Rosie. "Of course."

She started to walk away. Noah was almost to the bank.

Mira said, "I'm sorry for all this. You probably want to know?—"

Turning, Josie held up a hand. "Mira, we're going to need to talk to you at some point to close out our investigation, but it doesn't have to be now."

"But I?—"

"I'll need to read your Miranda rights," Josie said.

Although Mira was a victim, Josie was guessing that the District Attorney would want to press charges against her for not telling the police about Seth right away. Then there was the Shane Foster matter, but that was out of Josie's jurisdiction.

Mira squeezed Rosie more tightly against her body, like she might never get a chance to hold her again. "Go ahead."

Josie recited her Miranda rights. When she asked Mira if she understood them, Mira answered yes. Then she sighed. "Everything I said back there was true. I was practically a baby when I met Seth. I fell hard for him. By the time I got pregnant with Ryan, I started noticing that he would act strangely sometimes, become fixated on odd things. I went along with it because I loved him. I loved him so much, and we were having this baby. But his suspicions got so much worse. He was convinced that some authorities somewhere were tracking him, and they were going to take Ryan."

"Those were delusions," Josie said. "From what I understand."

Mira nodded. "I didn't understand at the time. I honestly thought we could have a real family life. Maybe we could have. I always wanted the opposite of what my parents had, and we might have been able to do it except that then he disappeared with Ryan. I saw him again when he was about five years old but then I didn't see him again until he was ten years old. By that time, I had Rosie and I was so afraid he'd take her from me, too. Permanently."

"You didn't talk with police?" asked Josie. "Try to petition for custody?"

Tears streamed down Mira's battered face. "I wanted to but I was broke and terrified. I had no support system. My parents were horrible. Once, I went to the police station and talked to the officer at the front desk, trying to explain to him that Seth had taken my son and I couldn't find them. He never even wrote anything down. Said it was a matter for the courts, not the police, because we were both on Ryan's birth certificate and there was no custody order in effect for the police to enforce."

Sadly, Josie knew this was true. Technically, Seth hadn't done anything wrong by leaving with Ryan. Had Mira sued him for custody later, the fact that he had disappeared and kept Ryan from her would have counted against him, but that would have been of no help to her when she was trying to locate them.

Mira sucked in a shaky breath and continued. "There was a time that I threatened to sue Seth for custody. I wasn't sure how I'd do it, but I thought I'd figure it out. The next time he came back without Ryan, I threatened him. That was the first time he ever laid a hand on me in anger. It was terrifying. He said I would never see Ryan or him again if I tried anything like that. Then he kept Ryan from me for five years. I was in so deep I couldn't see a way out. I was completely focused on just trying to keep Seth with me as much as possible and hope that he would let me see Ryan again. I never knew where he kept him. There were times I tried to follow him but eventually I'd lose him. Then one day he caught me. He beat me badly that time. Then he said that if I ever tried to follow him again, I wouldn't see my son for the rest of my life. Sometimes—" She broke off, stifling a sob. Rosie stirred in her arms but didn't wake. "Sometimes I worried he was dead."

"He was with Deirdre Velis," Josie said. "Here in Denton. Seth's ex-girlfriend."

"When I finally got to see Ryan again—when he was ten—he told me that I wasn't his mother. A woman he called Dee was his mother. Neither he nor Seth would tell me anything about her. All I knew was that her name was Dee. Seth swore they weren't in a romantic relationship but now, looking back, I think Deirdre and I were always in a battle for Seth, and for Ryan, without ever having met."

"Rosie never met her?" Josie asked. She took a quick glance over her shoulder. Noah was on the bank now, talking with Gretchen.

"If she did, she was too young to remember," Mira said. "Or she hasn't told me. I don't know. But Rosie is all mine." She looked down at Rosie's sleeping face and touched her cheek.

"Seth gave you access to Rosie?" asked Josie.

"I was with her almost all the time until she went to school. I couldn't believe that I got Seth to agree to put her in school. April helped with that, and I promised to make sure she only ate things he approved. He took her away a few times when she was a toddler but never for more than a few weeks. I lived in absolute terror that he would take her away completely like he did with Ryan."

Josie's ankle started to throb from standing on it so long. She knew it wasn't broken but it was going to take a week or two for it to stop hurting. "After April called DHS, that's what he did, didn't he?"

Mira sniffled. "Yes. In hindsight, she was right to call but I lost Rosie because of it. April stopped speaking to me altogether. I always knew she thought I was sad because of the way things were with Seth and Rosie, but we were starting to become friends. She fell in love with Rosie in a hot second. She only talked to me twice after Seth took Rosie."

"You never told her about Ryan?"

Mira looked at her feet. "No. I was too embarrassed. Besides, his whole life, I'd only seen him a couple of times. He was never really mine."

"When April spoke with you after Seth took Rosie from Hillcrest, it was about Shane Foster, wasn't it?" asked Josie. "Were you there the night he died?"

Mira shook her head, still not meeting Josie's gaze. "No. They told me afterward. Seth asked her to bring Shane to the park so she could prove to him that she hadn't ratted Seth out. Her dating a police officer? The worst possible thing, in Seth's mind. He thought if April just introduced him as her sister's boyfriend, they could have a beer on the lake and he could figure out what Shane knew. Things didn't go so well. Shane pretty much immediately knew that something was off. April was too scared, and she couldn't hide it. There was some kind of argument. Seth got into his truck to leave but instead, he tried to run both Shane and April down. She managed to get out of the way but Shane didn't."

"April was too frightened of Seth to tell," Josie filled in.

"Seth made her go with him to bury Shane. Right after it happened, she was in such shock that she wasn't thinking straight. Seth had just tried to kill her, too. She blacked out. She didn't even know where Seth had taken them. She said that one minute she was standing near the lake while Shane and Seth argued and the next, she was in the pitch-black woods helping Seth roll Shane's lifeless body into a grave. By the time they got back, she thought she was in too deep. She'd gone too far. She hadn't tried to get away from Seth at any point during the drive, even when they stopped for gas. Seth convinced her she'd go to prison, lose her teaching license, and worst of all, no one would ever see Rosie again. I heard the same story from them both, and I didn't tell either."

A truck roared to life nearby. Mitch leaving with his boat now that his work was done. Josie picked pieces of burnweed from her shirt. Mira's admission that she'd known about Shane Foster's fate and not told the authorities would most definitely result in charges.

As if reading Josie's mind, she said, "I confess. Whatever happens to me now, I don't care. Rosie is safe."

"You said you spoke to April twice after she called DHS."

Mira ran a hand up and down Rosie's arm. "The second time was when she came to me before I moved here and said she had paid for an online background check on Seth. It said he had a brother—Jon—and she thought if I came to Denton and talked to Jon, I'd be able to find Rosie."

"Was that when she gave you the brochure?"

Mira's eyes widened in surprise. "Um, no. Not then. But wait, you found that? Under the drawer?"

"Your cat wasn't exactly happy about us removing it from the cabinet, but yeah."

"That's why it was under there," Mira said. "My cat doesn't let anyone in that cabinet where I keep her food."

Josie shifted her weight again as the throb in her ankle worsened. "April approached you while you were still living in Hillcrest and told you that Seth's brother lived in Denton, but that's not when she gave you the brochure?"

"No. All I knew when I moved here was that Seth had a brother named Jon. I found Tranquil Trails and enrolled there. I didn't know what kind of relationship that Seth had with his brother, if any, and I didn't want Jon scaring Seth off by telling him I was there, so I didn't tell anyone I knew Seth. I just became a client and hoped I'd make contact with him at some point. It was the only lead I had to find Rosie."

"When did April give you the brochure?" Josie asked.

"Not for a long time. About a year after I moved here, she came to the insurance firm where I worked. I don't know how she found out I worked there but she showed up one day. Acted like she wanted to buy insurance. I pretended to do intake. She never purchased any plans. I had no idea she'd just moved to Newsham."

The visit to the insurance firm in Denton might have shown up on April's GPS when Heather conducted her investigation, but it wouldn't have sent up any red flags. Insurance was something most people bought, and since April hadn't bought any plans from that office, there would have been no reason to even look into it.

Mira sighed. "April was a mess."

"In what way?" asked Josie.

"She was consumed with guilt about Shane. She wanted to tell but she didn't want to go to prison. Also, she wasn't entirely sure where she and Seth had buried him. It was the middle of the night when they did it and like I said, she had kind of blacked out. But she was convinced it was somewhere on his brother's property. She wanted to confess everything to the police and tell them to search Tranquil Trails."

"But there was still the matter of Rosie," Josie pointed out.

Mira touched the crown of her daughter's head with a feather-light touch. "Yes. April still wanted to find Rosie, but she was afraid that Seth would kill her if he felt backed into a corner. Neither of us trusted the police to find them. No offense. At that point, I still hadn't made contact with Seth. I convinced April that us going to the police about Shane would only ruin our lives and any chance we had of finding Rosie. I told her that Seth had help from another woman but I didn't tell her about Ryan. I begged her to give it more time. We wanted to find a way to get Rosie away from Seth without both of us going to prison. We just didn't know how."

From her periphery, Josie saw that Noah and Gretchen had moved within earshot. "That's when she gave you the brochure with the note?"

"No. A few months later, she left that envelope for me at the firm. She was getting impatient. I think the guilt was eating her alive. It was her way of telling me she was sure that Shane was buried at Tranquil Trails and that we needed to just tell the authorities."

"She didn't want to try to find Rosie first anymore," Josie said.

"I don't know, but that's the impression I got. By that time, I had started having regular visits with Seth, Rosie, and Ryan at Tranquil Trails, trying to build trust with them. I was trying to figure out a way to get Rosie from Seth. I had saved money. I was going to sue for custody. I wasn't there the night Shane died so I was banking on the fact that Seth wouldn't play that card. But Ryan had become so angry. I was more afraid of him than Seth. Every time Seth would seem open to me taking Rosie off his hands, the next week he'd come back and have changed his mind. Like someone was talking him out of it. Ryan, or that other woman, I don't know. I tried looking April up so I could tell her my plan, but she'd already been abducted."

"You had no idea that Ryan had taken her?" Josie said.

"Not at first, but then I realized that I had once told Rosie that when I finally came for her, she could see Aunt April again, too, because she lived nearby. Apparently, Rosie let that slip but when I confronted Seth, he had no idea what I was talking about. I accused him of abducting her. He was mystified."

"Because Rosie didn't let it slip to Seth," Josie said. "She told Ryan."

A tear slid down Mira's face. "Yes. The next week, Rosie told me that she'd heard Seth and Ryan arguing about April. Seth kept saying Ryan did a bad thing and had to let her go. I confronted them both, right then and there. I told them I was going to turn Ryan in, call the police, and, well…" She looked away. "Ryan came after me. He wanted to kill me. He only ever cared about protecting his father. Seth got him to calm down, barely. I lied to them both and said if they returned April to me, only me, I wouldn't tell and that I had enough influence over her to convince her not to tell, either. I mean, she hadn't told about Shane. They bought it. But then when they brought her, and I saw the condition…"

A sob rose in Mira's throat. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Rosie shifted but still didn't wake.

Josie was aware of the EMTs approaching. "Ryan stabbed you both."

Mira nodded. "When I saw her, I—I wasn't prepared for it. I got so upset. I started screaming at Ryan. How could he have done this to her? Then I yelled at Seth. How could he have allowed this to happen? What kind of son did he raise? At that point, Ryan decided our deal was off. He wasn't giving April back. She must have heard him because she made a run for it. Well, she tried. She could barely walk. It must have used up everything in her to take those last steps. Ryan went after her. He was just in a rage. He had that thing in his hand. I tried to stop him. I mean, there was no way that April was a threat, but he just went nuts. Seth finally pulled him away but by then it was too late. He was more worried about getting Ryan out of there than about us."

"You put April in the car and then you stopped to try to get Rosie."

More tears streamed down her cheeks. "She'd drawn me the map a few weeks earlier. They hadn't been there long, but she'd explained to me as best she could where they were. I'd already checked it out. But when I pulled over, I was so dizzy and there was so much blood. I knew I couldn't go all the way down to the shore, swim there and swim back with Rosie. April was dying. Then there was the accident and…I'm sorry I lied to you."

"You knew where Rosie was when we spoke with you in the hospital," Josie pointed out. "We could have rescued her that day."

An EMT climbed into the bay and started checking Mira's vitals. Sawyer touched Josie's shoulder as he followed his colleague. They started discussing whether or not they should put Rosie in the other ambulance.

Mira's attention was still focused on Josie. She gave a bitter laugh. "Any other day in the history of knowing Seth, he would have immediately come back here, picked Rosie up, and left. I never thought, in a million years, he would stay here. I thought they had left. The next day, Ryan followed me from Bobbi's house to mine. Brought me flowers, as if that could make up for what he'd done. He's really sick. I think that woman twisted him up worse than she did Seth. He wasn't sorry. He just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to turn him in. He told me Seth and Rosie were gone and if I wanted to keep Rosie alive, I'd keep my mouth shut. I promised I would but I guess he didn't believe me because no sooner had I left my house, he came by with the truck and snatched me off the street."

"Leave the girl," Sawyer told his colleague. "Let's just go."

The other EMT began checking that both patients were secure on the gurney. Mira took one last look at Josie. "Thank you for saving my Rosie."

Josie nodded and stepped away from the back of the ambulance. Sawyer gave her a mock salute as he pulled the doors closed. "Until next time," he said.

No, she thought. Next time wasn't going to be like this. She'd get him to come to dinner instead. They were family, sort of.

As she watched the ambulance pull away, the weight of the case and its sheer horror pressed down on her. Then Noah's hand swept across her back, his touch an instant relief from the sadness and tension of the day. "Let's go home," he said.